Deerfield- Ira Rosenblatt lives so close to...

- Ira Rosenblatt lives so close to the Tri-State Tollway's Deerfield Road toll plaza that, on a warm summer evening, he can hear the cursing of impatient drivers stuck in traffic. What he and his neighbors also hear is the sound of 120,000 cars and trucks a day rattling over rumble strips, grinding gears, racing engines and squealing tires. When Rosenblatt put his house on the market a few years ago, "eight of the 14 people who came to see the house one evening got out of their cars, heard the noise and got back in and drove off without ever coming inside," he said. Unable to sell for a good price, Rosenblatt has waged a five-year letter-writing and petitioning campaign to get the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to erect sound barriers. Now, relief finally may be in sight. Sound barriers are part of a plan to rebuild the Deerfield plaza. Scott Dworschak, community affairs coordinator at the tollway authority, said planners expect to do a sound study and meet with neighborhood residents this summer to determine where the walls should go. Construction could occur next year.

Grayslake/Mundelein

- Two public meetings on the proposed extension of the Illinois Highway 53 expressway through central Lake County have been scheduled for next week by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The meetings are scheduled for 2 to 8 p.m. April 27 at the Holiday Inn, Illinois Highway 83 and U.S. Highway 45, Mundelein, and the same hours on April 29 in Building K at the Lake County Fairgrounds, Illinois Highway 120 and U.S. 45, Grayslake.

Highland Park

- Illinois Highway 22 is open again between U.S. Highway 41 and Waukegan Road, but traffic will share one lane during work hours for the next few weeks. Traffic backups are likely to occur. Flagmen will regulate traffic flow during the day while construction crews are at work, but both lanes will be open during non-work hours. This phase of the project should be completed by about May 7.

Ingleside

- The next-to-the-last stop on the Metra Milwaukee District North Line, at Ingleside, is the first priority on a list of Metra parking lot projects slated for construction this year. Ingleside will get 50 additional parking spaces. Four other parking lots are also slated for additions this year in an attempt to ease the perennial parking shortage at Lake County's commuter rail stations. Grayslake will get 65 spaces; Ravinia (Highland Park), 61 new spaces and 42 rehabbed spaces; Round Lake, 100 spaces, and west Lake Forest, 125 spaces. Lake Bluff will get 65 spaces, but probably not this year. Metra plans to acquire the land and do engineering for the project, but construction is not expected until 1994.

Lake County

- For those who prefer two wheels to four, the Lake County Division of Transportation hopes to finish building the 27-mile North Shore Bicycle Path by November. There are two legs of the path. The west leg follows the old Chicago, Milwaukee & North Shore Railroad right-of-way west from Lake Forest to Rondout and on to Libertyville. Construction is slated to begin on the easternmost portion of the path this month and on sections farther west by the end of the summer. The north leg more or less follows the old Green Bay Trail. A section of that leg, between 20th and 24th Streets in North Chicago, will be built between September and November. Construction of a bridge over Illinois Avenue in Lake Forest is slated for July to November. Planners are still looking at the possibility of building a tunnel in 1994 on the west leg at Green Bay Road.